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  Alberta was staring at me, and I realized she was waiting for an answer. “Something she’s slept on maybe?”

  “Perfect.”

  As I watched her hurry down a hallway and into a room, I felt my phone vibrate. It was a text message from Tom saying he wanted to help but needed an address. An odd blend of gratitude and annoyance whizzed through my mind. We can manage this, snarked Janet demon. He knows that, countered good Janet. He wants to help, not take over. I decided to give Jay a few minutes on the track and then call Tom and let him know what was happening.

  Alberta returned, breathing hard. She set a pink-and-white striped cube with a pointed top on the floor in front of Jay. It looked like a smaller version of one of those old-fashioned tents for changing clothes on the beach. The floor inside seemed to be a fleece-covered cushion. Jay shoved his head into the thing and, from the sound of his sniffing, got a good schnozful of the cat’s scent.

  I checked my shoe laces, a tracking precaution I learned the hard way, and zipped my sweatshirt up to my chin. “Are you going to follow us, or wait here?” I ask.

  “I’m coming with you!”

  I knew she would, of course, but I worried about her tendency to wheeze and gasp with minimal exertion. Still, it was her cat, or at least she thought of her that way. Some feral cats don’t settle into domestic life easily, even if they like you, and I wondered whether Gypsy had simply followed the siren call of freedom, despite its hardships and dangers. I snapped the long line onto Jay’s harness, removed my leather leash, and handed it to Alberta. “Jay!” He looked at me, back at the cat bed, and back at me, as if to say, “Yep, got it. Let’s go find her!”

  three

  Jay hit the ground pulling, making me feel a bit cartoonish as I scrambled both to keep up and slow him down a notch. He was definitely on a trail, and I hoped it was Gypsy’s. That’s the thing with tracking—with our poor deficient noses, we must trust that our dogs are on the scent trail we want them to be on. It’s a bit like asking someone to translate a page of writing in a script that we can’t read. Trust. We have to trust the other guy. Jay had never let me down.

  We angled across Alberta’s leaf-strewn front lawn, the one next door, and the next. Jay’s shoulders were well into the harness and I had to force myself to hold him to a speed I could manage at a faster-than-normal walk. Running may seem more efficient, but—another hard lesson learned—the small margin of time gained is offset by the high risk to middle-aged joints, bones, and skin trying to keep up with an engaged dog over rough ground. Sixty seconds into the search and I was already warming up inside my sweatshirt, but I couldn’t stop to adjust my clothes. Alberta was still with us, but her breathing sounded a bit like my mother’s old fireplace bellows.

  “Gypsy never goes out anymore! Someone must have come in and grabbed her.” I was surprised that Alberta could still talk between gasps. “They hate me, you know, because I feed the poor strays that live behind the club house.” Maybe she was oxygen deprived, I thought. She was starting to repeat herself.

  Jay veered toward the street, so I shortened the line and stopped him at the curb. Alberta bumped into me and clutched my arm. Her cheeks were so pink they glowed.

  “Who hates you?” I asked. Jay turned to look at me. He whined something that sounded a lot like “Come on!” and bounced his front end impatiently. “Hang on, Bubby. Car.” We could have crossed before the car reached us, but I thought Alberta could stand to catch her breath. Jay turned away from me, put his nose to the ground, pulled into the harness, and muttered again when I anchored him in place.

  Alberta released my arm and put a hand to her chest. “But how can they hurt an animal? Especially one that’s no threat?”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Golfers for one. They claim the cats leave dead things on the greens.” She snorted. “It’s their damn kids out there with BB guns do the killing, you know, birds and squirrels and things, and they know I know it, too.” She coughed and patted the notch of her collarbone. “They shoot the cats, too.”

  That I knew to be true. The paper had run several articles about Halloween violence aimed at animals in the area, including two elderly pet cats from Alberta’s neighborhood that were shot with BBs at close range in their own backyard. One lost his eye. They still hadn’t caught the shooter.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said. “Gypsy may have just slipped out. You said you had a plumber here this afternoon, right?”

  Alberta looked past me. The red in her face spread and deepened and an artery in her temple puffed up and pulsed. I turned my head toward the street. A big white SUV slowed as it rolled by, but the occupants were invisible behind tinted windows. Jay startled me with a series of short, deep-throated barks and I took a step back from the curb, pulling him with me. “Jay,” I said. He glanced at me, then back at the car. “Here,” I said, and heard a bright edge in my voice. In a flash Jay was at my side, leaning into my calf, still alerting on the car. I had learned to pay attention when my dog seemed to find something amiss. I knelt and sank my fingers into Jay’s dense fur and folded my fingers over the muscular curve of his shoulder.

  “That’s them.” Alberta stepped into the street and screeched, “What have you done with my cat?” She swung the snap end of my leash at the car and missed. The driver’s-side window opened a couple of inches and a chorus of male voices erupted within. Most of what they yelled was unintelligible, but I made out “crazy” and “cat” and “tree hugger.” Then the window rolled up and the vehicle squealed away.

  “Delinquent bastards,” yelled Alberta.

  Jay barked a parting insult, then went back to sniffing and whining. I gathered and re-coiled the loose end of the long line and let Jay haul me across the street. His posture told me that he was partly tracking scent on the ground, but also reading something in the air. He pulled me up a driveway and across a backyard. The dormant grass felt crisp under my feet, the ground level and safe. Jay’s head came up and he leaped forward, shoulders strong against his harness. A small storage shed, salmon-pink with white gingerbread, huddled among bare-naked forsythias in the far back corner of the yard, and Jay raced toward it. He was no longer tracking. He seemed to know where he needed to be. Ankles be damned, I broke into a run and let him have his way.

  “Go. Go.” Alberta wheezed encouragement. “I’ll catch up.”

  Jay went into a sniffing, whining frenzy at the door to the shed and pushed against it. A violet rocking chair sat on the brick patio that ran the length of the little building, and lace curtains waved gently behind a window that stood open a few inches. Jay started to dig at the threshold and the door swung open.

  four

  The shed turned out to be a little art studio, maybe ten by twelve feet. An easel stood next to a small wooden table that held a palette, a ceramic pot blooming with paint brushes, and a dozen or so tubes of paint lined up like colorful little soldiers. The interior smelled of linseed oil. The window let in a little light and revealed a chintz-covered armchair by the back wall. A cat was stretched across the upholstered seat, her back to us, tail hanging limp off the edge of the chair. I signed Jay to lie down, held my breath, stepped to the chair.

  “Oh, no” I turned toward the sound and watched Alberta slide down the doorframe. I could barely hear her wheeze, “Is she … ?”

  Something in my chest folded in on itself and froze me in place for a moment, but I shook it off and forced myself to step to the chair and lean over. Gypsy tilted her head back and squinted at me. She opened her mouth in a silent meow and I felt my shoulders loosen and my chest reopen.

  “She’s fine.” I sniffed, blinked hard, and started to laugh. “She’s really fine.” I ran the back of my finger along a tiny black back, then a tabby, then a calico marked just like her mama. All three were firmly attached to the food bar. Gypsy pushed her face against my hand, and I leaned in for a nose bump. “But we�
�re going to need a carrier to get them all home, Grandma.”

  “What?” Alberta grabbed the doorframe and pulled herself upright. She smoothed her jacket down and crossed the space between us. “Oh.”

  Gypsy mewed at her.

  “Oh, well done, my dear.” Alberta’s face looked the way I felt.

  We stood in silence for a moment, and then Jay shifted and I felt as much as heard a barely audible growl. I turned around just as the little shed exploded in light and a voice boomed, “What the hell do you … You?”

  “Charles!” Alberta stood up and looked at the figure in the doorway.

  Jay leaned into my leg, filling the space in front of me and watching the man. The door frame was almost entirely filled by the body behind the big voice, but now he looked more perplexed than threatening. “What are you doing in my wife’s studio?”

  “Look.” Alberta moved to the side and swept her hand toward the chair. One step and Charles was looking down at Gypsy and her brood.

  “Oh, great, more of them,” he growled.

  Jay echoed him and I signaled my dog to lie down and stay.

  The man pulled a plastic grocery bag from a shelf and moved a big hand toward the kittens. Gypsy and Alberta both hissed at him and I shoved my body between him and the chair. Everyone started yelling at once.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” said Alberta.

  “Get out of the way,” said Charles.

  “Stop that!” said I.

  Jay grumbled but stayed put.

  Charles put a hand on my arm and started to push me. Apparently deciding that my “stay” command was now void, Jay stood and took a step toward Charles, the hair of his ruff and mane puffed out like a lion’s and a hard glare fixed on the man’s face. He barked once, then let a low growl roll from between curled lips. Charles pulled his hand away and retreated a step.

  “Get out! Get off my property and take your damn dog with you!”

  “Happy to, but you’ll have to wait while we get a carrier for Gypsy and her kittens.” I was pleased that my voice came out as steadily as it did, and I kept going. “Alberta, can you go get a small carrier?”

  “Right, yes.” She glowered at Charles and said, “Don’t you dare touch those kittens, or my cat!”

  “Or what? You’ll get an injunction?” Charles sneered the final word. He pulled out a cell phone and punched it three times with a thick finger. “I’m calling the police. You’re trespassing.”

  “Now, Charles, dear. I’m sure there’s a misun … Alberta?” A tightly coiffed blonde worked her way past the big buffoon. The top of her bouffant might have reached his rib cage if she had been wearing heels instead of glowing pink ballet flats. She glanced from Alberta to the little family in the chair and squealed. “Ohmygoodness! How absolutely adorable! Aren’t they adorable, dear?” She giggled at her husband but he seemed to be impervious to cute kittens or gushing wives.

  “Louise, what are you doing out here? And how many times have I told you to close the window and lock the door?” To the phone he said, “Yes, I want to report a trespasser, you know, breaking and entering.” He thrust the phone away from his face and said, “Now don’t touch them, Louise. They’re those wild ones. Carrying God knows what diseases and parasites.” Then to the phone again, “Yes, they’re here now … No, I don’t think we’re in imminent danger but I want them to leave and they’re refusing … I don’t think they’re armed but they have a vicious dog … How many?” He leaned forward and stared at the cats. “Five. No, seven. There are seven of them. Yes, I’ll be careful.”

  Alberta looked at me and rolled her eyes. I shrugged back at her.

  Louise knelt beside the chair and addressed Gypsy. “Oo have booteeful babies, yes oo do, yes oo do.”

  Charles shoved the phone back into his pocket. He wrapped a hammy fist around his wife’s bicep, pulled her onto her feet, and guided her toward the door. “Stop that nonsense. Bad enough that dinner is late because of these people, and you’re going to have to change clothes and scrub up before we can eat. Now go clean yourself up and put those clothes in the wash. They’re contaminated.”

  My lower jaw nearly dislocated itself at that and I started to say something, but the plea in Louise’s eyes stopped me. She turned to leave, her shoulders drooping and her face a crimson mask, and Alberta followed her out the door, calling back, “I’ll get a crate.” The two women could have been sisters, they were so well matched in size and age. They walked together toward the back of the house and, after a quick hug, separated at the steps to the long, multi-leveled deck that ran the length of the house. Alberta hightailed it back the way we came in. I watched Louise stalk up the steps to the back door and wondered what Alberta had said to her. The woman’s shoulders no longer drooped. Her posture and movement were stiff, as if all her muscles had tightened into a knot of pure anger. I couldn’t be certain at that distance, but her hands seemed to have balled into fists.

  Not for the first time, I was happy to have Jay at my side for reasons beyond companionship. Like most Australian Shepherds, he tends to take his time assessing people he doesn’t know, but occasionally he makes a snap judgment. The first time he met Tom, he turned himself into a pretzel—his way of saying Hail fellow, well met! Now he had his gaze fixed on the man with the big voice, and his expression was not friendly. No one who didn’t know Aussies would have noticed that his hackles were up, but I knew that his coat doesn’t usually stand away from his body that way. I also knew that he had made another snap judgment, and that gave me the freedom to ignore the ogre in favor of Gypsy and her mewling brood. Jay had my back.

  As I knelt next to the chair to admire the little family, a whisper of regret blew through my mind. If I had taken Tom up on his offer to join us, I wouldn’t be here almost alone with a belligerent boor. Oh please. Devilish Janet drowned out the whisper. Who saved whom last August, eh, girlie? That thought, too, was short-lived, because what mattered was not who did what, but that neither Tom nor I had been seriously hurt. But that was months earlier.

  That line of thought led my mind to an article I’d read not long before on how to survive a back-country encounter with a large predator. They meant, of course, a mountain lion or bear, but some of the moves would probably work on human bullies. The memory was interrupted when Charles took a loud couple of steps across the plank floor behind me. Jay’s hip was pressed into my back and his muscles were vibrating. I whispered “Down” and he oozed to the floor, his body still touching mine.

  “You’ll be sorry you ever got involved with that woman.” The man’s voice was pitched low, almost a snarl, and I fought the urge to stand and face him. In the silence, I recalled what I had read. Face the animal. Expand, the article advised. Grow large. Raise your arms. If you have a jacket, raise it over your head like bat’s wings. Yell.

  “You’re trespassing and I intend to press charges. Police will be here soon. I have friends …”

  Keep your wits about you. Don’t run, whatever you do. Don’t run.

  Even if I had wanted to run, I didn’t have time.

  five

  “Sir, are you the homeowner?” The voice was one I knew. Jay knew it, too, and I felt him start to wriggle, although he stayed down as I’d told him to.

  “Who the hell are you now?” Charles asked, then, “Whatever you’re selling, get out!”

  I turned in time to catch the look that flickered over Homer “Hutch” Hutchinson’s face, and I smiled. Charles may have called the police, but luck seemed to be on my side. I had met Hutchinson before, when he and his then-partner, Jo Stevens, investigated some murders that were far too close for comfort. We’d gotten off to a less-than inspiring start, but Jay had brought the man around and I’d come to almost like him.

  The studio’s lighting showed a flush spreading across Hutchinson’s fair skin, but other than a quick flicker of jaw muscles, he kept
his feelings to himself. He lifted his badge holder toward Charles and said, “Hutchinson. We had a report of intruders. Woman at the house directed us back here.” Two uniformed officers with flashlights were in the yard, one of them checking the shrubbery near the house, the other apparently watching the studio from a few yards back.

  “About time you got here,” said Charles.

  Hutchinson pulled out a notebook and pen. “Your name, sir?”

  “Rasmussen. Charles Rasmussen.” He stepped to the side and turned toward me and the animals. “There, you see? I want you to arrest them.”

  Hutchinson’s eyes went wide when he saw me kneeling by the chair. “Janet?” He looked at Jay, who lay watching Hutchinson with his nubby tail wriggling like a whirligig. “Jay?” Hutchinson paused as if he expected one of us to explain, but we both just grinned at him. “What’s going on here?”

  “Look for yourself,” I said, gesturing to the chair.

  Hutchinson stepped up, and the question written in the lines of his face morphed into a full-out grin. “How old are they?”

  “Brand new,” I said. “Alberta went to get a carrier so we can move them.”

  “Oh, wow!” Hutchinson bent for a closer look, then straightened as Charles started to yell again.

  “For heaven’s sake! Do something about this. They’re trespassing and that, that,” he hesitated as if searching for the right word, then continued, “that woman brought her vicious dog onto my property. I want them arrested.”

  Janet demon made me smile, whispering That the best you can do? Woman?

  Hutchinson scratched Jay’s chin and said, “Gooboy, gooboy.” What is it about animals that turns big tough men into baby-talking mushballs? Hutchinson stood and turned back toward Charles. “Sir, if someone has gone for a carrier to take the cats, then maybe you can just be patient for a little longer?”